By popular demand, we're celebrating the release of Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! by taking a look back at Franc Roddam's The Bride (1985). This mid-80s take on Mary Shelley’s mythic creation project tellingly got the budget of a period romance, but likely only because it had a new romantic pop star in the lead role and the production design of an Adam Ant music video. The result is a Gothic fable where baroque laboratories collide with heartfelt journeys toward independence. The monster – dubbed Viktor by his diminutive travelling companion, Rinaldo (David Rappaport) – is played by Clancy Brown, presumably because he strayed from casting sessions for Highlander.
Flashdance's Jennifer Beals’ Eva reinvents the notion of “the bride”: she’s bright, terrified of cats, and slightly too lucid for a world full of overlong candlelit discussions about autonomy and creation. Sting’s Baron Frankenstein embodies euro-aristocratic obsession with a bemused smirk, and spends most of his time leaning on something while holding a book.
Should this experiment in misunderstood Gothic romance finally earn its freedom? Or is it a well-dressed atrocity that should be hurled off the nearest tower? Find out!
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